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John Hardman is one of the world’s leading experts on the French Revolution and Louis XVI, authoring several distinguished books on the subject including Marie-Antoinette (2019) and The Life of Louis XVI (2016), which was shortlisted for the Elizabeth Longford Prize for Historical Biography and won the Franco-British Society Prize. Though you probably won’t have time to read all 416 pages of his book before the talk, if you would like to have a quick look at his views on Louis XVI see here: www.historytoday.com/archive/louis-xvi-and-french-revolution. Hardman seeks to understand Louis XVI from the king’s own point of view on every episode throughout his reign, with one of his reviews noting that ‘few can equal Hardman’s depth of knowledge when it comes to ministerial politics and the administrative workings of the Bourbon monarchy’. Why is it that when Madame La Guillotine cut short his reign, this shy but obtuse ruler ‘left a will but no political legacy (Hardman)’?
